turtledovefandomcom-20200216-history
Communism
Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. It is usually considered a branch of the broader socialist movement that draws on the various political and intellectual movements that trace their origins back to the work of Karl Marx. Communism in The Gladiator In one alternate visited by Crosstime Traffic, communism became the world's dominant ideology by the late 20th century after the Soviet Union won the Cold War. The ideology made concessions in each country. In the Italian People's Republic, for example, the Catholic Church was left largely unmolested, with the pope as leader of a non-communist state. Moreover, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China became rivals, with the PRC maintaining hegemony over Southeast Asia. Nonetheless, the governments of each state, as directed by the Soviet Union, kept a sharp eye trained on their people. Computers and typewriters were kept under lock and key, doled out to trusted Communist party members only. In fact, as Annarita Crosetti wryly noted, the state, instead of withering away as predicted by socialist ideology, was actually getting even stronger. Freedom of any kind was in short supply and everything thing was done by quotas. Since everything was nationalized and employees without salaries, things were in disrepair as workers often wouldn't work without enough incentive. The Crosstime Traffic employee Eduardo Caruso considered this alternate, a world dominated by Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism, to be only slightly better than ones in which Fascism had come to dominate the world.The Gladiator, pg. 262. Communism in The House of Daniel In 1930s America, the group which ruled Russia was believed to be vampiric in nature, because they had a blood-red flag. The truth had not yet been determined.The House of Daniel, p. 93. Communism in In the Presence of Mine Enemies Communism was vehemently opposed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. After the Axis won World War II, the Soviet Union was destroyed, and communism was stamped out throughout the world, meeting the same fate as those the Nazis deemed "untermenschen".''In the Presence of Mine Enemies'', p. 105. Communism in Southern Victory In 1882, Abraham Lincoln, a founding father of the Socialist Party of the United States, ruminated on the theories of Karl Marx as they could be applied to conditions in the Confederate States, and realized that if Marx's theoretical communist revolution occurred in that country, it would come from the Blacks. And so it did. Over the next three decades, black servants on CSA plantations eagerly read outlawed books by Lincoln and Marx, and formulated their own ideas about how things ought to be. In 1915, taking advantage of the CSA's distraction in the Great War, many of these people banded together for violent insurrections against the white ruling class and put together several "socialist republics" including the Congaree Socialist Republic and the Black Belt Socialist Republic, for the purpose of taking bitter vengeance on the people they saw as oppressors. However, these "socialist republics," while guided by anger and ferocity, lacked any real infrastructure or overall coordination, and their brutal institutions were soon suppressed with equal brutality by Confederate soldiers and citizen militias. Meanwhile, the CSA's Entente ally, the Empire of Russia, saw its own red uprising which was much more organized and effective, as class difference there was not defined by race or any obvious physical appearance, and the revolution had competent leaders such as the Man of Steel and the Hammer. Civil war between the White (monarchist) and Red armies lasted until 1926, when the last Red forces were crushed at Tsaritsyn. Thus, Russia's Red rebellion, while enduring longer than its CSA counterpart, was ended. By the 1930s, no revolution had been successful, and no lasting, recognized communist state had been formed. Instead, governments in Europe became increasingly monarchical and revanchist, including Britain's Silver Shirts and France's Action Francaise, and strengthening of the German and Russian imperial regimes. In North America, the CSA's Freedom Party gained power by promising to eradicate any possibility of further Red action. Although partisan movements and political parties kept communist spirit alive on a small scale as late as the Second Great War, it was clear by the 1940s that communism didn't have what it took to keep a nation afloat on its own merits. Communism in "Uncle Alf" After Germany defeated Russia in the Great War of 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II helped his cousin and former enemy Tsar Nicholas II put down a communist revolution in 1916 and keep his throne.Atlantis and Other Places, pg. 343. In 1929, Feldwebel Adolf Hitler of the German Feldgendarmerie wrote in a letter to his niece Geli Raubal that the Tsar "was and is a woolly headed fool of a Russian" for not hanging more revolutionaries in 1905, the year of a previous rebellion.Ibid., pg. 344. Hitler wrote this from Lille, France, where'd been sent to capture the communist agitator Jacques Doriot. Communism in Worldwar Communism was abhorrent to the Race on many levels. The Soviet Union, a not-empire that embraced communism, had been founded on the murder of its last emperor, a notion that horrified the ultra-monarchist Lizards. In China, a country that did not easily accept Race rule, the most organized and effective resistance was offered by the Chinese Communist Party. The Race wasn't the only party wary of the spread of Communism. A driving component of Nazi Germany's ideology was anti-communism. And while the United States supported communist resistance in China, it did so somewhat grudgingly. The US had long had an anti-communist bent to its politics. In fact, the brutal totalitarianism of the Soviet political system both before and after the war against the Race made communism repugnant to anti-totalitarians of every stripe. Communism in "Zigeuner" Communists, referred to interchangeably as "Bolsheviks," were one of the primary groups of "undesirables" targeted for extermination by the Nazis, along with homosexuals and "Zigeuner". References * Category:Ideologies Category:Holocaust Category:Soviet Union Category:The Gladiator Category:The House of Daniel Category:In the Presence of Mine Enemies Category:Southern Victory Category:Uncle Alf Category:Worldwar Category:Zigeuner